no one sings me lullabies

one thing i've been slowly but steadily trying to reign in is my horrible reliance on materialism. i spend way too much time looking for new things i want, and then convincing myself i need to get whatever new cd, dvd, or video game i think i need. and its really because i just enjoy the feeling of having new things. once i get something, its not even uncommon for me to hardly use it. for example, i still have a lot left to play in jade empire and san andreas, and yet i found myself wondering over the past couple weeks whether or not i should buy battlefield 2. i don't spend much time playing the games i already have, and yet i almost came close to convincing myself that i need to get that game. there's way more important things to use my money on, like stuff other than my own personal comfort and amusement. speaking of which, go help out all those poor folks in new orleans. the pictures on the news were insane. the whole place looks like its underwater.

i need to stop spending so much time at the computer. between sitting at one all day at work and then coming home and using it more, my back is killing me. although my back also hurts just about every morning when i get up, so that can't be helping.

you say the hill's too steep to climb

that pretty much sums up the whole huggins situation in a nutshell.

oak tree you're in my way

today wrapped up a busy week at work. we had less people on the phones this week, so instead of having 2 1/2 hours of available time a day, we usually had the lines backed up with people on hold. i don't mind being busier than we were before, but going from around two hours of available time a day to less than 10 minutes is a little bit of an extreme.

i'm seeing less and less reason to buy an xbox 360. i'm not sold on any of the next-generation consoles at this point, but the 360 just keeps slipping further down the list. there's really no way i'm going to shell out $400 for the premium system. its got too many things i don't need, like a headset for online play (no microsoft, there's still no way i'm going to pay you monthly to let me play your games online. i'll stick with pc games when i want multiplayer fun online) and a media remote controller. it does come with the 20gb hard drive that you need to play games from the original xbox, but that's something i think should have come standard with the system. but the $300 version, or the "crippled" version as someone else put it, is simply too bare bones to be worth getting either. plus, there really aren't any exclusive games that i know of that seem worth getting. halo 3 can rot for all i care, i can get any new games in the kotor series on pc, so a new jade empire game is the only thing i can think of that i would miss out on. most other games i've seen are also coming out for pc, so i'd just stick with them.

i've been reading donald miller's through painted deserts that i got a week ago. its pretty good; not quite the same style as blue like jazz or searching for god knows what since its more of a story, but its still good nonetheless. i also got it shipped to me before it actually came out since i ordered it through that website, so that was cool too.

austin and i are talking about trying to find a two person apartment by september since everything else fell through. we'll see if anything happens with that.

after everything i've done

the bengals looked merely okay in their preseason opener against new england last night. granted, preseason games aren't the most reliable measure of how good a team will be, but it was disappointing to see the defense get run all over like they have been in the past two seasons. odell thurman made some good plays though; i stil think he'll be a stud this year. palmer was also a disappointment. they've been raving about him and chad all preseason, but he still seemed to be making the same mistakes as last year. i also wish we'd gotten more looks at chris henry. and i don't think i even saw tj once.

on the bright side, our running game looked stellar. rudi absolutely tore through the patriots. he was finding holes and breaking tackles like a champ. chris perry was looking like he might have been worth that first round pick last year. not only did he do well running the ball, but he looked really impressive in the short passing game. we'll see how the rest of the preseason goes; hopefully they'll get it together before they open in cleveland.

i can tell you what they say in space

for all you possible mothers out there, here's some advice for the future: please don't eat gain powder detergent. i don't care how good it smells or what kinds of cravings you have. don't eat it. detergent is for washing clothes, not for freakin' eating. and if you do eat it, at least don't call the phone number listed on the package to ask if its going to be harmful after you've been eating for the past three months of your current pregnancy.


in other news, glorious football season is finally upon us again, which means its time for all kinds of wonderful fantasy sports. austin already created a fantasy football league, but i went ahead and created groups on yahoo for pro pick 'em, survival, and salary cap football. the password for each group is davie.

the survival football id # is 5563.

the pro pick 'em group id # is 2684.

for salary cap football, you'll have to create a team first. once that's done you can choose to join another group. the group # is 4933.


these groups are open to whoever wants to join.

counting all the hands i shook

tim and elly's wedding was this past saturday, and it went great. the ceremony wasn't too long, i didn't lose the rings (and avoided the temptation to do a smeagol impression in the middle of church), and the reception was a lot of fun. my toast at the reception went a lot better than i expected too. one of the best parts of the reception was when elly was tossing the bouqet: first she tossed it up so high that it went up into this indent in the ceiling where some lights were and there was no way to get it down. then, she threw a backup bouqet and it went over everyone's head and landed right in the lap of shocked band member. but she was single, so it worked out okay. and i lost count of the number of times someone made a comment about my wedding in the future. one at a time, people. in case you forgot, i'm still just twenty and in college. anyway, the happy couple flew back to new brunswick yesterday, and should be on their way to maine as i write this.

it was really good to see all the family that i haven't seen in forever. i got to see grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins that i haven't seen in awhile, so that was a lot of fun. the best was meeting my three year old twin boy cousins, paul and michael. they're absolutely crazy. i can't remember the last time i've gotten so much excercise as i did playing with them over the weekend. but it's always fun to have someone smaller than me (besides christy and my mom) around to beat up on.

i sent out emails at work today to try and find people that can switch hours and take over my thursdays so that i can take tuesday-thursday classes. of course, if i get my scheduled straightened out the way i want it, will there even be classes open for me to take?

so i just took a call from shelbyville, illinois. does that serve to answer the longstanding mystery as to where exactly the springfield from the simpsons is located? will we ever know?!?

i shot a man in reno just to watch him die

odell thurman signed with the bengals today. its about time. the defense will be the only thing holding the bengals back this year (barring injuries to the offense), so they desperately needed to get thurman and david pollack signed and into training camp. season starts in a little over a month, i can't wait.

so did anyone know about the family guy movie that was coming out later this year? i think its coming out straight on dvd, but i hadn't heard of it till daniel told me he downloaded it (of course daniel the pirate would have it). its pretty hilarious. i'm also surprised how restrained it is, considering that they could have put pretty much anything they wanted in it.

the cincinnati enquirer had a nice article on grandpa. it was good to see the relatives over the weekend.

so who wants to write a wedding reception speech for me?